Deal United Focusing on European Advertising Offers Business

While advertising offers companies from TrialPay to Offerpal and Super Rewards have been carving out the market in North America, Deal United has — like regional rivals including SponsorPay and SupersonicAds, tried to provide more relevant ads to online software vendors, gaming sites and other services. By working with advertisers and publishers in specific European markets, it is able to provide incentivized offers to users who might not otherwise be exposed to them.

Since its founding in December of 2007, Deal United has been able to sign up a list of known brands to provide offers in German (Otto, Bon Prix, Fonic, TV Spielfilm), French (Emusic, Toner Services, Metaboli, Foto.com, Dress-for-less.fr) and English (Toys R Us, Skype, Vistaprint). The company also covers Austria, Italy, Spain and Switzerland.

The Munich company is trying to clearly show users why they should take offers beyond just getting the reward, chief sales officer Jürgen Weichert, tells me, especially because European users may not have seen this type of advertising before. It tries to make the process clear; for example, the screenshot above lists the value of what the user gets when they complete the offer. When users go through Deal United’s offer flow, they get get an email confirming what they’re earning, including a link to see when the currency they’ve earned becomes available.

Deal United gets its inventory through direct deals with advertisers as well as from affiliate networks. Its focus is real-world goods, discounts from major brands, and other high-quality offers. It makes money from advertisers when users place orders rather than from impressions or clicks.

The company works with a wide range of publisher types — social games are just a portion, Weichert says, without elaborating on the size of that business — so it views its main competitors to be TrialPay and European rival SponsorPay. Another regional rival, SupersonicAds, has had somewhat of a different focus, like video ads. In the US, TrialPay’s business has centered on providing offers in exchange for software downloads, for example, and it has not been as focused on social games as companies like Offerpal and Super Rewards.

Of course, all of these companies are coming into contact more often these days, as the advertising offers business becomes a more prevalent means of monetizing users across different types of sites, and as social gaming expands the market size. Many US offers companies have opened up operations in Europe.

Still, Deal United’s specific focus on high-value offers appears to be well-timed. While much of the industry has run low-quality, and sometimes scammy offers in the past — mobile ringtone subscriptions are the usual example — increased scrutiny and legal action has prompted most companies to focus on improving offer quality. Because the company has been focused here already, it may have a jump on relationships with advertisers and publishers (again, we don’t have a good view of the company’s revenues or the overall European offers market size).

Going forward, Deal United is looking to expand its business on Facebook in Europe not just by getting new regional clients, but by increasing relationships with developers anywhere in the world who have large European audiences, as well as the advertisers who want to reach those people.